Ethel Kennedy, the Kennedy family matriarch who remained faithful to husband Robert F. Kennedy’s legacy in the decades after his assassination, has died. She was 96.

Her family announced her death on Thursday, which they said was related to complications from a stroke she suffered last week. “It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our wonderful grandmother, Ethel Kennedy,” former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass) wrote on X.

“In addition to a lifetime of work in social justice and human rights, our mother is survived by nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the post continued.

Known for her fiercely competitive spirit and devotion to her Catholic faith, Kennedy raised 11 children as a single mother after her husband was shot in 1968 — five years after his older brother, President John F. Kennedy.

Her final years were spent at the family’s famous Hyannis Port complex on Cape CodEthel’s life was marked by incredible privilege and searing tragedy. The infamous Kennedy curse seemed to hit Ethel particularly hard; throughout her life she suffered tragic losses, including her parents, her husband, two of her sons and a granddaughter.

But Ethel was not one to talk openly about her feelings. Instead, she sought solace in her own rosary, the Bible and daily Mass. In the 2012 documentary EthelDirected by youngest daughter Rory – who was born six months after her father’s death – Ethel is often a testy interviewee.

“Why should I have to answer all these questions,” she says at one point, then adds later. “All this introspection. I hate it!”

A luxurious upbringing

Like her future husband, Ethel – maiden name Ethel Skakel – was part of a large and prominent Irish Catholic family. Born on April 11, 1928, she was the sixth of seven children who joined a boisterous household that lived on a 16-acre estate in Tony Greenwich, Conn. Her father, George Skakel, was a self-made multimillionaire who founded Great Lakes Carbon. Company; her mother, Ann, was a deeply religious housewife.

Ethel was first introduced to the Kennedy family through Robert’s younger sister Jean, who quickly became Ethel’s close friend at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. She first saw Bobby during a 1945 ski trip to Mont Tremblant, a luxury ski resort in Quebec, and said she was immediately smitten.

“He was standing in front of a roaring fireplace in the living room,” she said in the documentary, recalling an interaction that showed off both her athleticism and her competitiveness. “We immediately made a bet on who could get down the mountain the fastest.”

But their love story was initially fraught when Bobby took a “left turn” and dated Ethel’s older sister Patricia for two years. It was a self-described “dark period” for Ethel, who disappeared after Pat found love elsewhere and RFK and Ethel reunited for good. It was, in almost every way, a complementary duo: the shy, studious Bobby was brought out of his shell by the outgoing Ethel – a crazy tomboy who enjoyed a competitive football game and a slightly devious joke. He in turn opened her eyes to the plight of the less fortunate, and although she grew up in a conservative Republican household, she quickly switched political allegiances after their coupling.

The couple were married on June 17, 1950 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenwich. John F. Kennedy, then a member of the House of Representatives, was Bobby’s best man.

A growing family

Ethel and Bobby’s brood grew rapidly after their marriage, with eldest child Kathleen making her debut on July 4, 1951, and a new child being added to the clan every year or two. To accommodate their growing size, the couple purchased Hickory Hill – a 13-bedroom Georgian estate in McLean, Virginia – from John and Jackie Kennedy in 1957. There, Ethel and Bobby raised their large, energetic family in a way that mirrored her own upbringing. – with children and a menagerie of animals running in all directions. At one point, a sea lion took up residence in the pool. “It was constant chaos—children, pet parties,” C. David Heymann, author of RFK And A woman named Jackieever said.

It was a happy, chaotic existence for the group, which grew as Bobby Kennedy’s legal career grew. While Ethel took care of business at home – with a small army of hired help – Bobby first made a name for himself under Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy as an assistant counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and later as chief counsel to the Senate McClennan Committee from 1957 to 1959. He eventually resigned to manage his brother’s presidential campaign, and was appointed Attorney General of the United States after JFK’s victory in 1960.

Ethel was exceptionally devoted to her husband and made a point of attending almost all of her husband’s public appearances – and she herself was a staunch supporter of JFK’s presidential bid.

“This was not James Carville and Mary Matalin,” said eldest daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Ethel from her parents. “She did what the man did.”

But she was a devoted, cheerful hostess who routinely entertained top politicians, celebrities and intellectuals at the real estate historian Arthur Schlessinger Jr.’s.the most vibrant social center in Washingtonin the 1960s. It was information that Schlessinger gathered firsthand; he was once pushed into the pool by a fellow guest, only to find Ethel already splashing around, fully clothed. While sister-in-law Jackie exuded sophistication and cool detachment, Ethel would taking charge during one of the many famous Kennedy touch football games, unafraid to beat her own children and once even playfully biting writer George Plimpton on the ankle in a bid for victory.

Losing her true love

As usual, Ethel stood at her husband’s side on June 4, 1968, in the middle of the Democratic presidential primaries, as he gave his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning California. In her 2012 documentary – filmed more than forty years after his death – Ethel looked as sad as ever when the subject of his murder came up.

“Talk about something else,” she said brusquely, looking down.

Ethel was three months pregnant with their eleventh child at the time of his death, and his murder gave her the status of respected. A 1969 Gallup poll named her the most admired woman in the country, even as she retreated to Hickory Hill with her family in relative seclusion. In an April 1969 cover story for TIME, Ethel gave the magazine a glimpse into the family’s private life—and private pain.

The article noted how her grief differed from Jackie’s: “Jackie has followed an aesthetic arc of grief that ends with a stylish whirl into another world.” Ethel’s particular triumph is maintaining normalcy. She simply continued, as best she could, the kind of existence Bobby would have pursued had he lived. Countless other widows have had to do the same, most with less comfort from friends, family and position. But recognition of this does not detract from the energetic bravery with which Ethel achieved this.”

Ethel also famously swore she would never marry again – and she never did.

But raising eleven children while dealing with her grief was not easy and seemed to hit her sons especially hard. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. painted a complex portrait of his mother in his 2018 book, recounting her tendency to speak harshly to her staff while often taking a “tough love” approach to her children. American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family.

“It seems I have been arguing with my mother since I was born,” he wrote. “Her tantrums seemed haphazard and disjointed to me, and of all of us siblings, they were most often directed at me. My rebellious nature and my tendency to point out her whims may have sharpened her disfavor. My involvement with drugs after my father’s death certainly fueled this.”

RFK Jr., who is known for promoting conspiracy theories, recently launched a bid for the presidencyt, who entered the race as a Democrat — briefly challenging Biden — before withdrawing and launching an independent bid. He has done so ever since his campaign suspended. And While RFK Jr. managed to overcome his addiction problems, younger brother and fourth child David never did. He died on April 25, 1984 at the age of 28 in a hotel suite in Palm Beach, Florida, with a cocktail of three drugs in his system, including cocaine.

Tragedy struck again on New Year’s Eve 1997, when sixth child Michael was killed in a skiing accident during a family vacation in Aspen. More recently granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of a drug overdose in August 2019 while at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port. Decades earlier, both of Ethel’s parents were killed when their private plane crashed on October 3, 1955.

Commitment to human rights

Inspired by her late husband and extended Kennedy family, Ethel became a dedicated human rights lawyer after her husband’s death. She founded the foundation in 1968 Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights which, according to its website, advocates “a more just and peaceful world.” In 2014, the Washington, DC City Council also voted in favor name a bridge in her honor to celebrate her work advocating for social and environmental causes in neglected DC areas.

Later that same year, then-President Barack Obama also knew her one Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work “advancing the cause of social justice, human rights, environmental protection and poverty alleviation by creating countless ripples of hope to bring about change around the world.”

“Don’t mess with Ethel,” Obama said as he presented her with the award.

Although Ethel lived more than fifty years after her husband, he was never far from her thoughts, and her deep Catholic faith made her confident that she would rejoin him after her own death. And while she’s officially known for hating introspection, she did provide a glimpse into how she dealt with grief and her views on death in her 2012 documentary.

“When we lost Bobby, I woke up in the morning and thought, ‘He’s fine. He’s in heaven, and he’s with Jack and many of my siblings and my parents. ” she said. “So it made it really easy to get through the day knowing everything was fine.”